New sustainable self-washing underwear stays fresh for weeks

Sustainability

A clothing company has developed underwear embedded with a product that kills odour-causing bacteria

Spotted: Technical clothing is a garment engineered for a particular purpose. Examples covered here at Springwise include a shoe that can change with fashion trends and a sports bra that adjusts to movement. Now, Danish startup Organic Basics has invented underwear that is designed to remain fresh through weeks of wear, for those who don’t always have time to do the laundry.

Organic Basics CEO, Mads Fibiger, explains that the company’s underwear can last for days, or even weeks, without washing. They claim to have achieved this feat by treating their products with Polygiene, a product that uses silver chloride to kill the bacteria that cause bad odours. Silver has always been used as an antimicrobial that can prevent infection as well as bad smells, and it can kill up to 99 percent of bacteria.

Organic Basics also points out that frequent washing and replacing of clothing is not good for the environment. However, killing bacteria is not the same thing as self-cleaning. Even without smelling bad, after several days of wear, the underwear could still be coated in sweat and dead skin cells. Some journalists who tried the product said they could detect a “less than fresh” aroma on just the second day of wearing. Despite differences in opinion, the underwear is said to be very comfortable. It is made with a hard-wearing, silver-coated polyester thread and so it is also very durable, although thicker than ordinary underwear.

Takeaway:

The Organic Basics underwear may be most useful for times when it is difficult to wash every day, such as at music festivals or when camping. Silver is increasingly being used in products such running shirts, socks and toothbrushes. However, there is concern among some scientists that the growing non-medical applications could lead to some bacterial strains to develop resistance to silver. Will silver underwear prove to be beneficial or harmful?